


Night Watch

by hello_mintblooms



Category: Aladdin (1992), Aladdin (2019), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Books, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Friendship, Jafar is lonely and falls in love with a servant because you know he’s exactly THAT type, Loneliness, Reading, Romance, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hello_mintblooms/pseuds/hello_mintblooms
Summary: For the last several months, Jafar has been unable to sleep. He falls into the same routine each and every night, finding an unexpected refuge in a servant girl he can’t seem to stay away from.





	Night Watch

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to write anything, so consider this a small gift to tide you all over until I’m able to update again. It’s not the best quality, but I tried. Rated “Mature” just to be on the safe side. Thank you all for sticking by me for so long!

On nights when he can’t sleep—and that would be most of them—Jafar can be found lingering by your door, his thoughts churning within him as he invites himself inside.

He hates being vulnerable more than anything else, though in the last several months, he’s found that he hates being lonely even more, and that simply will not do.

Tonight is different, because tonight his face is streaked with tears that he will not explain, not even to you. His expression is a canvas of perfect granite, composed as always despite the evidence that even Agrabah’s vizier has moments of weakness.

You are already in bed when he shuts the door behind him, waiting for him as you always do. He nods in your general direction without sparing you a glance nor a word, and you want to ask him what’s happened, want to ask him what has caused him to break in such a manner, but you think you would rather not know. Jafar is even more frightening when he is broken—and he is a lot of things, but never that. You reign in your fear for him and pat the empty space beside you. He sits, wordlessly handing you a book in the process.

Honesty has never been your strong suit, though if you _must_ be honest, you cannot say you mind Jafar’s nightly presence. He is like a spectre, a shadow dancing across your vision that you can see even when it disappears from view. You crave him—have craved him—since the day you’d glimpsed him through lace curtains and frosted glass when bringing his evening meal up to his study. One look was all it had taken for you to fall, fall, fall.

You glance at the cover of the book he’s thrust into your hands. It is a tattered volume, which can only indicate that he’s read it more than just a few times. Why ask you to read it then, if he practically has it memorized? You examine a few pages, your eyes skimming over lines of text that speak of battle strategies and political uprisings that you have little interest in.

As you peruse through the volume, you can feel Jafar’s eyes on you, carefully assessing every manner of expression that crosses your face. Even if you cannot see him, your mind is able to conjure the perfect vision of his eyes, black and endless with a spark growing within. A shiver crawls across your skin.

You jump when you feel his fingers inching their way up your leg, past the folds of your nightgown, and coming to curl gently round your knee. His touch is warm, filling you with a comfortable haze you wouldn’t mind wholly surrendering to.

“What is it?” His voice is soft, quiet, inquisitive. Much more serious than usual. “What are you thinking?”

You shake your head, unable to speak, for the spark in his eyes turns to stars and you cannot get enough air into your lungs no matter how hard you try. Those eyes—those eyes teeming with darkness and the warmth of his hand against your bare skin are all you can focus on.

Jafar removes his hand, and the breath you didn’t know you’d been holding escapes you, filling the room with your relief. He goes completely still and closes his eyes.

You take this as your cue to perform the task for which he’d come for.

You begin to read, your voice filling the room with instructions on how to best earn the trust of an enemy, how to crush armies in battle, how to transform an empire to godliness from mere ashes. Behind each and every one of your words, you can hear Jafar’s breath growing steady, and you think he must be asleep.

_Already_? 

Closing the book, you place it carefully on the carpeted floor by the night table. Jafar’s eyes snap open, and he grabs your wrist without a second thought. Your blood rushes to your head, making you dizzy. 

“I thought you were asleep,” you mutter, gaze pinned to the hand on your wrist. You dare not look at him, for you know what will happen if you do. Jafar has never been a stupid man. “I can—I can continue reading if you’d like, it’s not an—” 

A small gasp is ripped from your throat as his hand moves from your wrist to your chin, keeping your face still and in place so that you have no choice but to look at him. His eyes drive you mad with things you will not put a name to, cannot put a name to. 

“Kiss me,” he whispers, voice sweet and sticky with promises. You say nothing, your mouth resting foolishly against words chained by fear and darkness. You want him, gods you _want_ him, but if you tell him that it will become all too real.

And then what? Then he will use you like all his harem girls, tossed to the side once he’s gotten his promised fuck. You are worth more than that. A simple servant girl you may be, but you are worth infinitely more. 

_Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better_, the voice in your head echoes. _You know he would have forcibly taken that from you if that was what he had wanted. He has never needed permission. But he is asking permission because he knows your worth in the same way that you know your own._

“Do you wish to kiss me? I rather think you are owed payment for your nightly bedtime stories, would you not agree?” A hint of playfulness seeps into Jafar’s words, though it is paper-thin, for the expression passing over your face suggests that you would rather slit your own throat than entertain his presence for even a moment longer.

He is about to rise and make for the door, but you place your hand over his and force your voice out into the silence. “Yes,” you say. His eyes widen, resembling the glass marbles with which the children play with in the city streets. “You know I do. _Please_.”

You don’t mean to sound like you’re begging, and you can’t even form the thought because Jafar’s lips are already crashing against yours, his beard scratching roughly against your skin. He makes a sound that resembles that of a kitten as your tongue slides over his lips, making a demand that he is more than happy to oblige. Somehow, you end up on top of him, his hands roaming your body and cradling you to him as if you are made of glass.

He’s lonely, you realize. He has always been lonely, and you—you are the only place which he can truly call a home. A home away from the nightmares and all that ails him. A home that readily accepts him night after night, one that asks no questions of him and welcomes him without asking for anything in return.

He is the one who breaks the kiss, his lips hovering over yours. His breath is hot against your skin. “What do you want to do?”

His question surprises you, even more than the roughness coating his voice. “What do you mean, what do I want to do?” Your fingers reach out to stroke his jaw, and he closes his eyes for the briefest of moments, savouring your touch. How long he’s wanted this. How much courage this is taking, here and now. 

“Do you wish to see me again still?” There is a tremor hidden within his words, though he has always been a master at disguising the truth. “Because if you do not—if you do not I will not return. You have my word that you will seeme as little as possible while you are employed within these walls.”

He means it. You know he means it, but you don’t want him to. _Stay_. That’s what you want to tell him. _Stay and never leave me._

But instead you say, “Come back tomorrow night. I’ll read to you again. For as long as you want.” 

A smile tugs at his lips. “Only read?” 

You kiss him, smiling against his mouth. “Read, and whatever else you wish. But only if you ask nicely. He who asks receives, after all.” 

Jafar laughs. You have not heard his laughter, true and genuine, in weeks. “Is that so? Will you give me your heart as well, if I ask?” This he whispers against the shell of your ear, his hands resting beneath your nightgown, over your thighs.

“Perhaps,” you say. Shyness twists your insides into knots. “Bring me another book and we shall see.”

Jafar gives no response. Instead he ghosts kisses over the side of your face, your neck, then returns to your lips, stealing from you that which he’d been so sure would be denied to him.

He sleeps peacefully tonight. No nightmares, no spectres, no monsters chase him. There is only you, wrapped around his limbs like you have belonged there since the dawn of time itself. The sound of your voice is the final thing which skims across the surface of his mind as the darkness coaxes him into a world of brightly-coloured dreams.


End file.
